In A Nutshell: Firebase

In A Nutshell: Firebase

Trust me in today’s world when it comes to choosing the best suitable front-end technology is really a hard task and time consuming factor and at the same time choosing the backend technology is aso a nothing short of hard task as we have so many options in front of us. So we as developers always find a tough job of deciding what kind of backend is most suitable for the apps that we build for our clients.

In this post i will be writing one of our hot choice is Firebase and you gonna get to know what it is all about, why did we choose it, about the CLI and about it’s other line of products or service that could be useful for Firebase.

What is Firebase?

Firebase (it was developed by Firebase way back in 2011 and in the year of 2014, Google acquired it) in a short Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) we and everyone call it a real-time database and probably this is our favourite feature and this is one sort of reason that’s why do we love Firebase here at Themesfinity and with the help of Firebase API (Application Programming Interface) we developers can build world-class scalable applications fin the cloud for both web and mobile platforms.

Why do we use Firebase?

Well Firebase really frees up developers like us to craft awesome application that really matters and worls well for our clients and their users. So the main reasons why do we use Firebase at Themesfinity is it’s darn easy to set it up, authentication supports out-of-the-box, NoSQL is alluring to me, no need to manage any servers, no need to write any APIs, because Firebase will be our server, API and data store, Here we can customize it purely based on our requirements as it was written so generically. Trust me based on our experience with the Firebase using it for the right use cases, Firebase is an excellent tool.

Firebase CLI

Well we all know that how much power can add when we use CLI and for us at Themesfinity, Firebase CLI is one of the most important tool. We use this tool to administer Firebase account, interacting with Firebase hosting, deploy our code to Firebase, to run a local web server for cloud functions.

Using Firebase in Production:

Firebase performs very well and cope up with different set of demands as it can be used for real-time chats, for billing or invoicing systems, design collaborations, project management, games, GPS-tracking apps, social networking apps and many more. When we worked with Firebase we found one thing which you may really like about it is that it gtows well with your product development process,

When and for what purpose to use Firebase?

Well yes this is going to be a really fuckingly good question and trust me that Firebase doesn’t get fits well with all types of apps and you may find it difficult to know when and for what purpose to use Firebase. Well to make it easy for you to consider to use Firebase or not as we laid out 4 valuable points and if your app idea meets all 4 requirements then you’re fair enough to use Firebase for your next project.

A. Shorter Time to Develop App: If you want to build your app faster then Firebase would be best bet as it helps you in cut down development time and cost as well. It helps in no more messing around with setting up your servers and data storage. By default Firebase will take care of it and you easily start concentrating building apps. The learning curve to use it is usually very low and demands very few effort for a developer to use. For large projects, the backend developer can focus their time on high value tasks instead of allocating development time on repetitive activities.

B. Do you want data in real-time: Firebase strongly encourages you to make everything in your software real-time. When your application uses real-time data it’s a magical experience, no longer do you tell people “oh refresh the page…” after you do something for them, instead, it appears in front of them as soon as you did it — it’s a really pleasant UX.

C. Effortless scalable: This is pretty straight forward. If I want my application to scale well, I can trust that Firebase will handle all my data without missing a step. Real-time means you can easily infuse real-time features such as push notifications in the mobile app, thus helping in delivering real-time abilities to a mobile app.

D. Enhanced Security: Till the time, the Firebase is being implemented with the Google’s infrastructure; for sure it will provide your project sophisticated safety. However, the security can be multiplied by confining to NoSQL parameters, and by default, all the user and the app data will be stored on the Google server, you just are not required to develop a separate module for controlling and monitoring the data.

Awesome Firebase Products

There are a bunch of Firebase Products, most useful of them are explained below

1. Firebase Analytics:

Firebase Analytics is quite powerful tool for getting useful analytics about your product. It is more oriented to apps and like a new version of Google Analytics. You can use Google Analytics for Web Product.

2. Firebase Real-time Database:

Real-time Database is very useful tool for Apps, you can save and retrieve data in real-time, it means we don’t need to refresh the page in order to update the data. Data is synced across all clients in real-time, and remains available when your app goes offline. It is a NoSQL cloud database (with SDK support for iOS, Android, and the web), It easily integrates with Firebase’s other tools for authentication, file storage, analytics and others. It stores data in JSON documents, so everything is either a key or a value. Developers continue to choose Realtime Database because of its low barrier of entry, low maintenance costs, and fast queries.

3. Firebase Authentication

You don’t need heavy servers to handle the sign-up and sign-in methods. Just implement Firebase Authentication in your product and it will handle everything including Sign-in, Sign-up and authentication of Email and phone number. Also sign-in using Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts. A huge time saver product.

4. Cloud Functions

Well eventually when we begin to work with Firebase we started to fall in love with this incredible service. With this new service Firebase offers a scaleable solution for running back-end code in the Google’s Cloud Infrastructure and execute in response to app events.. It lets you write in JavaScript or Typescript. Running code in the cloud has various advantages.

You do not need to run and maintain your own server

You do have an isolated code base for back-end code

You only get billed for the actual executing time of you code

The cloud infrastructure is highly scaleable

5. Cloud Storage

Cloud Storage for Firebase is a powerful, simple, high-scalability, and cost-effective object storage service and it is quite similar to AWS S3. And for end-user it’ll be secure and fast. All it means we can upload and download the data from anywhere. Firebase Storage SDK allows us to store the files and share with anyone.The Firebase Storage SDK works with Firebase authentication.

6. Cloud Firestore

Cloud Firestore ( separate backend to attract a wider audience with a different architecture that focuses on different priorities like complex querying and data integrity) is a NoSQL document database that simplifies storing, syncing, and querying data for your mobile and web apps at global scale. Its client libraries provide live synchronization and offline support, while its security features and integrations with the Firebase and Google Cloud platforms accelerate building truly serverless apps.

NOTE: To be honest still we have to give a spin on this Firestore and waiting for the opportunity which will be a fully operational and a real-worl environment.

Extra bytes

In case if you’re new to Firebase and really want to learn the basics of Firebase then you can watch 20-minutes video as it runs through hosting, auth, firestore, storage, and cloud functions using nothing but plain JavaScript.

Conclusion

Well i believe that this post has been helpful in your quest to build an awesome Firebase app. Each project you take on will require careful analysis, consideration and planning, otherwise you’ll lose time, effort, and money trying to shoehorn a solution out of the wrong tools. So to be honest Firebase is not for all project and i recommend to use Firebase if your project/apps demands for it like if your app is giving some real-time features for your users like social media apps or chatting apps or anything that is related to throwing real-time data. I’d love to hear from you on this post on if something is missing or something is incorrect with this post either on Twitter or drop a comment below this post.

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About the Author

I’m the Founder & Lead Developer of Themesfinity and i’m very much passionate about WordPress, React, GraphQL and Serverless. I spend most of my time tweeting and writing code using VSCode and i’m too much addicted to coffeeholic.